Friday, March 15, 2013

Second Batch of Friday's Free Books 3-15-2013

These books are free at the time of posting. Amazon.com changes their prices all the time so before you click on the download button, make sure the price for the Kindle Edition (not the Prime Members cost) is $0.00 or £0.00. Now on to the books . . .

Michael and Emily are a happy and contented English couple, a writer and a school teacher. Their lives are complete when Emily falls pregnant, however their dreams are shattered one cold winter night by a car accident that robs them of their happiness.

To overcome their loss they up stick and move to Eden Gardens, a US gated community that offers "Heaven on Earth and Twice as Nice". The people are warm and friendly and welcome them with open arms. The town is a beautiful throwback to a bygone age, where the sun always shines and the sky's always blue.

As they settle into their new perfect lives, the circle is complete when Emily falls pregnant. The town is perfect, the weather is perfect and their lives are perfect. But are the stares from their neighbours a little too intense, is the town a little too interested in their happy news, and is Eden all that it seems.

They are about to find out that paradise comes at a cost, and when you sign a lease, you should always check the fine print.

As a still "aspiring author" I can only apologise if the editing is not quite up to the professional level. I am writing, proofing, editing, promoting etc all whilst working a normal full-time job. My novels have all had multiple read throughs and been sent through three different software programs for spelling & grammar checks. I hope that readers understand if there are some very minor errors to still be found, and I have always set my book prices to reflect this. I hope that you enjoy this novel and read it with a little understanding.

Love is something everyone longs for at the deepest level—but for some, love is a curse. This is most certainly true for Asher Lake, the Keeper of an unknown group of people called ani-shifts. Ani-shifts, those with the ability to shift into animal forms, compose a secretive body of individuals known simply as the Union.

A wolf in shifter form, Asher lives with a curse placed upon him and his predecessors by the elusive Raven—a dark entity whose identity remains a mystery. According to the ancient archives, the Raven’s curse is conditional and set in motion by one fatal decision: if a Keeper ever allows himself to fall in love, he will die.

Choosing to live in isolation within the walls of Lake Manor, a private estate concealed by the dense woods of Brokenridge, Asher has vowed never to love or to fall in love with anyone believing it to be the only way to survive the curse. However, after ten years of neglecting his people and the protégés left in his care, along with the impending threats of an uprising, Asher learns the only way to break the Raven’s curse on future Keepers, thereby preventing them from suffering the same fate, is to accept his.

This becomes Asher’s biggest challenge of all when he encounters Elle Ison, the woman of his dreams. Does Elle hold the key? Can she help Asher change his fate?

They can’t get along with each other, but they can’t get along without each other. Bailey likes to win whether in the courtroom or on the 10K race track. So does Austin. When the two meet, sparks fly in all directions.

Bailey Russell’s life is pretty much perfect. She has a dog, a condo, and she’s on the fast track to becoming a partner in the small law firm where she works. Then Austin Travers shows up with his electric blue eyes and electric touch. He beats her in a 10K race, almost overtakes her in an impromptu swim meet, and cooks a delicious meal while her cheesecake tastes like greasy cardboard. However, she takes him down in the courtroom and in a game of chess. The score is close to even. Then she learns he wants to change her law firm, merge it with a bigger one, disrupt Bailey’s life.

To her chagrin, Bailey finds herself attracted to the annoying man, but she remembers only too well the painful days of being a skinny, awkward adolescent, the butt of jokes about red hair and freckles and brainy women. Men like Austin Travers reserved their interest for beautiful women with soft voices and bust line measurements that exceeded their IQs.

Austin soon realizes that Bailey is the most frustrating woman he’s ever met, a tiger, a force to be reckoned with. She makes him crazy, but all other women are pale ghosts beside her. She makes him feel vital and alive. If only he can figure out how to be around her for five minutes without wanting to strangle her.

Widely acclaimed for his work completing Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time saga, Brandon Sanderson now begins a grand cycle of his own, one every bit as ambitious and immersive.

Roshar is a world of stone and storms. Uncanny tempests of incredible power sweep across the rocky terrain so frequently that they have shaped ecology and civilization alike. Animals hide in shells, trees pull in branches, and grass retracts into the soilless ground. Cities are built only where the topography offers shelter.

It has been centuries since the fall of the ten consecrated orders known as the Knights Radiant, but their Shardblades and Shardplate remain: mystical swords and suits of armor that transform ordinary men into near-invincible warriors. Men trade kingdoms for Shardblades. Wars were fought for them, and won by them.

One such war rages on a ruined landscape called the Shattered Plains. There, Kaladin, who traded his medical apprenticeship for a spear to protect his little brother, has been reduced to slavery. In a war that makes no sense, where ten armies fight separately against a single foe, he struggles to save his men and to fathom the leaders who consider them expendable.

Brightlord Dalinar Kholin commands one of those other armies. Like his brother, the late king, he is fascinated by an ancient text called The Way of Kings. Troubled by over-powering visions of ancient times and the Knights Radiant, he has begun to doubt his own sanity.

Across the ocean, an untried young woman named Shallan seeks to train under an eminent scholar and notorious heretic, Dalinarâ€™s niece, Jasnah. Though she genuinely loves learning, Shallanâ€™s motives are less than pure. As she plans a daring theft, her research for Jasnah hints at secrets of the Knights Radiant and the true cause of the war.

The result of over ten years of planning, writing, and world-building, The Way of Kings is but the opening movement of the Stormlight Archive, a bold masterpiece in the making.

Speak again the ancient oaths,

Life before death.Strength before weakness.Journey before Destination.and return to men the Shards they once bore.

The Knights Radiant must stand again.

At the publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management software (DRM) applied.